Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Person.....Hatcher, Claud A.
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Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 June 20, 2007, 4:33 pm
Source: Sesquicentennal Supplement, Ledger- Enquirer
Name: Claud A. Hatcher
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R.C. Cola Gets Start in Basement
By Bill Winn
Guest Columnist
Columbus' claim on the origin of Coca-Cola may be a bit shaky, but there is
no doubt that the city was the birthplace of another soft drink giant, Royal
Crown Cola. "RC'" (correct local pronunciation: "Aura See") was for many years
a sort of poor relation to Coke, relegated to backwood stores and country
picnics where it was "de rigueur" with fried chicken, barbeque and moon pies.
But those times are long since gone.
Nowadays, RC is but one of several drinks and products of Royal Crown
Companies, Inc., a multinational corporation with 5,550 employees, four major
divisions, and net sales approaching $350 million annually. In addition to RC,
the company now markets, through its Soft Drink Division, Diet Rite and Nehi
beverages throughout the U.S. and in 51 countries overseas.
Its Arby's Division is the largest roast beef sandwich restaurant chain in
the U.S., with 621 franchised restaurants and 65 company-owned restaurants
coast- to-coast. Its Citrus Division turns out citrus products under the Adams
and Texun labels, and produces a variety of other citrus products for major
national food chains. And its Home Furnishings Division markets such products
as Hoyne mirrors, Athens furniture, Frederick Cooper and Tyndale lamps, Couroc
trays, and National and Structural picture frames.
Truly, the company - there are now 12,855 shareholders - has come long way
since its originals, right after the turn of the century, in the basement of
the old Hatcher Grocery Company on Eleventh Street between Broadway and First
Avenue.
The man who started it all was Claud - without an e - Adkins Hatcher, a quiet
scholarly, absent minded-professor type from Terrell County. Hatcher was 25
years or when he came to Columbus. He was a graduate pharmacist from the
Louisville. (Ky.) Medical School. For a time prior to coming to Columbus, he
had operated two drug stores, one in Preston, Ga. and the other in his native
Dawson. But in 1901 he sold his Dawson store and came to Columbus to join his
father in a wholesale grocery company.
The Hatchers and two partners formed their own Cole - Hatcher-Hampton Grocery
Company in 1901. In a couple of years Claud Hatcher and his father bought out
the other partners and the organization became the Hatcher Grocery Company.
Bottled soft drinks were up and coming in the early 1900s. No one was more
aware of the increasing demand than the wholesale grocery companies.
The Hatcher company was particularly aware of this. As a service to their
customers, the Hatchers delivered bottled drinks to them at cost along with the
regular grocery orders. In addition to Cola- cola, which started operations
here in 1902, other bottled drinks of the day included cream soda (a vanilla
flavored carbonated beverage) root beer and ginger ale.
Claud Hatcher, a former druggist, watched the demand increase with special
interest.
He set up a small laboratory in the basement of the wholesale grocery firm
and began experimenting with carbonated beverages. Claud Hatcher was not just
doodling around. He knew full well what he was doing.
As a druggist he had sold the carbonated beverages, and he was an honor
graduate in pharmacy. He had started out to be a doctor but switched courses
after a year and completed his degree in pharmacy. Headed home after
graduation, he stopped off in Atlanta and took the examination to become a
registered pharmacist. His test grade was the highest that had ever been made
up until that time.
From the basement of the Hatcher Grocery Com¬pany, then located on Eleventh
Street between Broadway and Front Avenue, came the first bona fide Columbus
soft drink creation to achieve status - Royal Crown Ginger Ale. Claud then
created a line of fruit¬ flavored carbonated drinks called Melo.
The Hatcher Grocery Company was a built-in dis¬tribution system and, the
Hatcher soft drink business was on the way. Claud Hatcher and his father
organized the Union Bottl¬ing Works. In 1907 the grocery firm moved to its
present location at Tenth Avenue and Tenth Street which was to become an
International soft drink headquarters - but a lot of hard work and a lot of ups
and downs were ahead.
Before the Hatchers could expand their soft drink business to meet the
increasing demand, they had to, have additional capital. To Lucious Hatcher,
still the top-notch salesman fell the job of raising more money. The elder
Hatcher went to two of his better customers in the town of Sasser, Ga., a small
business center in the rich farming area of southern Terrell County. He talked
and grocerymen, William Anslem Anthony and Cecil C. (for Centen¬nial) Anthony
listened.
The Anthony’s of Sasser were sold and decided to invest in the young soft
drink firm. W. A. Anthony moved his family to Colum¬bus to become president and
manager of Union Bottling Works on Feb. 17,
1911. Claud Hatcher, who was president and manager of Hatcher Grocery Com¬pany,
was elected secretary and treasurer of the reorganized Union Bottling Works.
Claud Hatcher decided the Union Bottling Works must produce a cola. So he
got busy. The result was a carbonated beverage called Chero Cola.
Chero Cola caught on fast. In a short time it was the spearhead beverage of
the Union Bottling Works. Young Hatcher, who had proven to be a master at
organizing promotion ever since he created his first Royal Crown Ginger Ale
trademark: a pretty queen wearing a crown, decided the firm should bear the
name of, this new cola beverage.
Chero Cola. Company was organized in 1912. Chero Cola's first board of
directors consisted of Claud A. Hatcher, Lucious A. Hatcher, William A.
Anthony, C. G. Anthony. C. A. Sears, Dewitt Pickett, John Shields and Walter
Davidson. Claud Hatcher was president; W. A. Anthony, treasurer and C. A.
Sears, secretary.
Dewitt Clinton Pickett was a suave, debonair type with an exceptional
persuasive ability and a flair for colorful language. He was a lawyer and had
been a long time friend of Claud Hatcher's in Dawson. Pickett proved to be a
special asset to the company in gaining new business and establishing new Chero
Cola franchised bottlers. Teamed with Lucious Hatcher in the field, sales
zoomed.
Another Chero Cola director, Claud A. Sears also without an e - was married
to Claud Hatcher's youngest sister. He had worked for a year with the
International Harvester Company in South Carolina and came to Columbus to help
organize the new Chero Cola Company.
Sears took over, as advertising director. And that was quite a chore, for
Claud Hatcher ardently believed in advertising. So strongly in fact that the
first six years, Union Bottling Works' advertising costs amounted to 47
percent of all the company's operational expenses.
Things at Chero Cola were looking better than ever in 1914. That was the year
the company graduated from the mule and wagon. The first Chero Cola truck was
brought for delivering the bottled beverages in the Columbus area.
And that was the year another young man who was to be prominent in the Royal
Crown story joined the company. He is C. C. Colbert who came to Chero Cola as a
clerk. His home was in Richland and he had worked at a cotton warehouse there
after graduation from Southern Business University in Atlanta.
By the time World War came along, the hard work and determination had begun
to pay off. The outlook for Chero Cola was better than ever, and Columbus was
now closely identified with the drink.
Then came the company's first major crisis. Sugar, the all important
ingredient in bottling soft drinks, suddenly rocketed from less than five cents
a pound to more than 30 cents a pound. For awhile it looked like doomsday for
the soft drink industry.
Claud Hatcher, figuring it would be easier to get raw sugar than the
refined product, went to New Orleans and bought expensive sugar refining
equipment and brought it to Columbus. At the same time he hired a highly
qualified chemist. E.E. Ferrandeau, to come to Columbus and work on a way to
change the raw sugar.
Souvenier bottle openers and knives in the shape of handsome feminine legs
were distributed by the Nehi promotion forces.
The Nehi Corporation was pretty much holding its own in the late 20s. Nehi
sales were good, but Chero continued to drop. Then came the worst time of all.
Company morale reached its lowest point on the last day of 1933 when the
guiding hand of Claud Hatcher was stilled with his sudden death.
By this time the Depression had cleaned out the Nehi Corporation's reserves
and debts pilled up.
Bottlers could not pay the mother company for the concentrates. The mother
company Nehi, could not pay its suppliers. Debts in early 1934 amounted to more
than $300,000.
When Hilary Richard Mott first joined the company in 1920 he had no real
executive status. He was one of a great many sales representatives in the field.
But "H.R.," as he was called by Columbus associates, had a way with people.
Out in the field he kind of took the bull by the horns, so to speak. Soon his
colleagues in the field started coming to him for decisions. And over .a period
of a few years, without actually having been named to any official
status, "H.R." became the "voice of Claud Hatcher" in the field.
Hatcher, who always kept a very close hand in all the details of the company
operation, soon recognized Mott's abilities and transferred him to the home
office in Columbus. Not long afterwards Hatcher named Mott vice president.
"H.R. was named president of the company after Hatcher's death and the fate
of the ailing company was in his hands.
Already Mott and treasurer K.S. Worthy had been to see each of the creditors
throughout the country.
Mott and Worthy laid it on the line. "If you foreclose you'll be in the same
condition we are in and we believe we can do the job better.''
To a firm the creditors agreed not only to hold back on current obligations
but to extend credit.
With the value of Nehi stocks down to 25 cents a share, and a steep uphill
fight for survival ahead, the hard-driving, bullheaded Mott set the course.
The key men in the driver's seat in the early thirties were K. S. Worthy,
C.C. Colbert, W.E. Upchurch and Mott.
They streamlined operations, dropped the slow moving beverages and
concentrated on the best sellers.
Then one Sunday Matt called Rufus Kamm, company chemist down to the office
for a private talk.
“Rufus,” he said, “We’ve got to, have another cola drink -a good one. Can
you make it?"
"Yes," Kamm said and went to work.
Six months later Kamm's new cola concentrate was sent to selected bottlers
around the area.
A Dothan, Ala. Nehi bottler named Grubbs was one of the first to bottle the
new Royal Crown Cola.
He came to Columbus and told Mott, "You've got something here." Reaction
from the other sample bottlers was the same.
But the name, Royal Crown, is too long, some of the bottlers claimed. So
somebody thought of RC. It stuck.
With RC a new company and bottler spirit seem to flow.
It was the middle of the Depression. It was a big 12-ounce bottle for a
nickle. At crossroads all across the south, they called it a "belly washer" and
bought it and liked it.
The lines of the Nehi sales chart started upward again and the belly washer
from the thirsty city was doing it.
In 1933, just as the com¬pany was beginning to recover from the
Depression, Claud Hatcher, its founding father, died. Mr. Hatcher had a
reputa¬tion as a serious-minded, hard-working executive, and it was not until
after his death that his charitable nature came to light. A woman from Dawson
brought in several hundred dollars she said Hatcher had given her to send her
child to college; a banker brought in some .stock cer¬tificates he said Hatcher
had given him; he had loan¬ed a number of people large sums of money simply on
their word.
Most important, Mr. Hatcher left the bulk of his company holdings to the
Pickett and Hatcher Educa¬tion Fund, a Columbus organization which provides low-
cost loans to finance the college educa¬tion of deserving students. To date,
since its establish¬ment in 1938, more than 15,000 students at 500 colleges
have received loans from Pickett and Hatcher; these loans amount to more than
$18 million. Generations of college students now attest to the generosity and
kindness of Mr. Hatcher.
By the time 1940 rolled around Nehi sales were 10 times what they were in
1933. That year the sales value of the finished drinks by Nehi Corporation
amounted to more than $6 million. The retail sales volume of the finished
drinks made by the bottlers from these concentrates was in excess of $ 50
million.
1940 was the year that C. C. Colbert took the Nehi reins as president. A
half billion bottles of Royal Crown were sold that year. Under Colbert's
guidance sales jumped from $6 million in 1940 to $10.6 million in 1955.
Of the Nehi fruit flavors a quarter billion bottles were sold in 1940. The
biggest seller in this line was orange with root beer next, then strawberry,
grape, lime and chocolate.
Par-T-Pak was a big item then. A. brilliantly colored brochure issue in 1940
featured the full quart Par- T-Pak to serve six. These were the Part-T-Pak
flavors: orange, root beer, lime rickey, Ginger Ale, Sparkling water, Imitation
Grape Soda, Imitation Punch.
Sugar rationing during World War II held any expansion plans in check. But
after the war, it was full steam ahead.
In 1954 Diet-Rite was introduced. It is a sugar free beverage in several
flavors such as cola, orange and root beer.
That year also saw the establishment of Nehi's first canning plant.
In 1955 came the firm's newest canned product, a chocolate flavored drink
which may be served hot or cold. Colbert ended his 15 years as president in
1955 and was elected chairman of the board.
He was succeeded in Nehi's top job by Wilbur H. Glenn, formerly vice
president and secretary.
Wilbur Hatcher Glenn, a nephew of Claud Hatcher, is a native of Birmingham,
Ala. After attending the University of Alabama he started with the Nehi
Corporation in 1929.
Glenn worked his way up from the ground floor. He worked as route salesman,
special sales representative, bottling plant manager, and treasurer of the
corporation before being named vice president and secretary.
He became a member of the board of directors in 1945, and during the years
he was president of the company -1955-1965 - Glenn led Nehi through a period of
tremendous growth, and oversaw the amazing success of Diet Rite Cola. He also
saw the corporation change its name for the third time, from Nehi to Royal
Crown Cola Company in 1959.
Diet Rite had originally been marketed on a limited basis as a special
dietary soft drink, aimed at diabetics or other individuals who had to restrict
their intake of sugar. Initially, the drink had a noticeable aftertaste, but in
the mid - 1950s, researchers began to experiment with ways to eliminate this.
To the amazement of almost everyone in the industry - the researchers task was
one which was widely regarded as "impossible" -- these men were able to come
up with a drink with a true cola flavor, almost devoid of aftertaste and
completely sugar free (less than one calorie per bottle).
Diet Rite was first marketed on a test basis, in Greenville, S.C, William
E. Uzzell, then vice- president, led the team that first put Diet Rite before
the public on a large scale. The drink, to say the least, was an instant
success. Within 90 days, Diet Rite accounted for a major percentage of the
local bottler's plant volume without detracting from the sales of other
drinks from the plant.
Based on the success of the Greenville test marketing, other bottlers
around the country were supplied with Diet Rite ingredients. In an amazingIy
short period, they almost all reported fantastic acceptance of the new product.
In one major market, Diet Rite bottles became so scarce that the bottler was
forced to run adds urging the local public to return their empty bottles to
relieve the pressure.
Everywhere it was tried, Diet Rite was a tremendous success. In just 18
months it became the number four cola beverage in the United States, and almost
overnight it worked a revolution in the marketing of low-calorie, sugar-free
cola drinks. Today, the drink has many Imitators, but it remains a strong
seller and a vital part of the Royal Crown Companies, Inc. soft drink products.
In 1965, William E. Uzzell succeeded Wilbur Glenn as president, and the
organization entered a new era of truly international expansion and growth. In
1966, Royal Crown moved its International subsidiary headquarters from Fort
Lauderdale, Florida to New York City, opened, new plants in Italy, Ireland,
and the Dominican Republic, and moved more operations into the Far East,
South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and throughout the world.
In 1969, William C. Durkee succeeded Uzzell as president, and Durkee, in his
turn, was followed by Donald McMahon, the current president of what has now
become a true multi-national corporate, the Royal Crown Companies, Inc., the
fourth name by which the organization has been known.
In 1975, in a move that shocked and saddened many residents of Columbus,
Royal Crown moved its corporate headquarters to Perimeter Center in Atlanta.
And recently, it was announced that the marketing and sales departments-
including almost all of the top executives - will shortly relocate in Chicago,
taking from Columbus all RC enterprizes but the company's concentrate
manufacturing plant and some accounting offices, Chicago is the firm's largest
U.S. market, and the city's transportation facilities are among the best in the
nation - both cited as key reasons for the shift of personnel.
However, RC's concentrate manufacturing plant, McMahon points out, will
continue to pour some $5 million in payroll into the local economy each month.
Still, many Columbus residents - including stockholders who stuck with the
firm through thick and thin - are distressed to see the city lose the home-
grown corporation,
"I'm numb," said one such Columbus native, a remark that fairly well sums up
the feelings of many locals.
One cannot help but wonder what Claud Hatcher and the many Columbus men and
women who worked so hard to make the RC story a successful one, would say to
the move.
Special Sesquicentennal Supplement IV
Ledger - Enquirer, Sunday, May 7, 1978, S-24
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